The Palm Springs International Film Festival has selected Spike Lee as the recipient of its career achievement award.
Lee will be presented with the honor at the festival’s awards gala on Jan. 3 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The festival runs from Jan. 3 to Jan 14.
“Spike Lee has been an outstanding warrior for equal rights while creating an iconic body of film and television work over his 30-year career,” said festival chairman Harold Matzner. “In ‘BlackKklansman,’ Lee directs one of his best and most provocative films about an African-American detective and a white detective who are determined to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs. It is our great honor to present the Career Achievement Award to Spike Lee.”
Past recipients of the festival’s career achievement award include Annette Bening, Kevin Costner, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Sally Field, Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter, and Samuel L. Jackson.
Lee made his feature directorial debut in 1986 with “She’s Gotta Have It.” Other credits include “Do the Right Thing,” “Jungle Fever,” “Malcolm X,” “Crooklyn,” “Clockers,” “Get on the Bus,” “25th Hour,” “Inside Man,” “Miracle at St. Anna,” and “Chi-Raq.” Lee’s documentary work includes “If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,” “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” and the Peabody Award-winning “A Huey P Newton Story.” Lee is currently in post-production on the second season of the “She’s Gotta Have It” TV series for Netflix.